Emerging ...

I've walked by her sometimes twice a day since I got here. I don't know her name but I do know what she represents. She is a nod to Emerging Equality. The plaque under the statue explains that and of course you can see that she is just emerging from stone, from a state of immobility, from hardly existing to running full out toward the future. And at the risk of sounding very egotistical and self-centered I consider her, me.

Maybe I can't relate to the oppression women in this culture have had to overcome but I am someone emerging from one life into another or at least taking a very different direction just to see where the new path can lead. I left behind a life where things were settled. It was comfortable and secure. This is far from that. Here even simple things seem to be complicated.

But it's challenging me every day. It's forcing me to grow in ways I guess I thought I'd already grown and wouldn't have to do again. Like finding a place to live, or meeting new people from different cultures and seeing our way in the United States is far from the only way to do things. It's made me live on less....a lot less. Less space, fewer things (because less space means nowhere for things that aren't necessary) and that living in a world of excess can really spoil you.

And I've also learned not only that I have to depend on myself, but that I can. We all have things we hate about ourselves...face it...we all have our demons. But you have to take them on to overcome them. It's a slow process but it's freeing.

And that makes me feel a bit like this woman emerging to a new freedom. I may be old to learn that lesson, but relying on yourself is a basic need for existence, because you really are the only one who will ALWAYS be there.